God's Island, Upper Yard.
In a lush, dense forest.
At Sephiroth's signal, more than thirty Umbrella Corporation employees in black suits used ropes, vines, and other materials to bind the priests and guerrillas, over six hundred people in total, one by one, disarming them of all their weapons.
Meanwhile, Gild Tesoro headed alone to the center of the golden city of Shandora. Using his Gold-Gold Fruit ability, he swiftly melted down the gold covering the buildings, causing the city of gold to rapidly lose its golden hue...
Once he saw that his men had nearly finished tying up the prisoners, Sephiroth walked over to Gan Fall and Ziegel, crouched down, raised his hands, and lightly patted their cheeks.
"Hey! Wake up! Stop sleeping..."
At Sephiroth's call, the two men lying on the ground with their hands bound by rope finally slowly came to and opened their eyes.
Gan Fall struggled to raise his head and looked around. When he saw that his God's Squad seemed not to have suffered any casualties and had merely been tied up and restrained, he finally let out a breath of relief before turning to the silver-haired young man.
"What exactly do you want?"
"What do I want?
What if I said... I wanted to place Sky Island under my rule? Would you believe me?"
Gan Fall fell silent at those words, but Ziegel beside him shouted angrily.
"Keep dreaming! Our Shandia Tribe will never surrender so easily!"
Sephiroth chuckled, his tone somewhat teasing.
"Oh? What if I said that if you surrendered to me...
your Shandia Tribe could once again live on this island, and...
you could relight the Lights of Shandora?"
Hearing such tempting terms, Ziegel's body trembled, and his tone softened somewhat, though he still asked suspiciously:
"You actually know about